Cops: Man Upset Over Botched Meal Torched Eatery

Choephel Norbu apparently flipped over not getting chicken biryani he wanted from Queens restaurant
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 22, 2022 9:30 AM CDT

A Queens, NY, man is in hot water after he apparently got miffed over a screwed-up order at a Bangladeshi restaurant earlier this month and set the place on fire, according to court documents cited by NBC News. Security video shot early Oct. 2 outside Ittadi Garden & Grill in Jackson Heights shows a man dousing the shuttered eatery with some kind of liquid, then bending down and setting it ablaze. As a fireball bursts out around him on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, the man—whom authorities ID as 49-year-old Choephel Norbu of Flushing, per the Jackson Heights Post—appears to catch fire himself before he runs away.

The FDNY notes that Norbu was arrested by fire marshals and the NYPD's Arson & Explosion Squad, after what FOX 5 says was a two-week investigation. He's said to have admitted to detectives he was "very drunk" at the time of the incident, and that it was indeed a messed-up chicken biryani order that had irked him. The Queens District Attorney's Office tells NBC there was about $1,500 worth of damage to the eatery, including damage to the AC unit and shattered glass in the front of the establishment. Norbu—who was charged with arson, criminal mischief, and reckless endangerment before being released—is set for another court appearance on Dec. 7, says a spokesperson for the DA. (More arson stories.)

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